Customers desire shorter time periods between when an order is placed for a machine and when the machine is available for delivery. To meet this goal, manufacturers look to shorten the assembly time of the machine. This can be difficult because machines and vehicles (each, a “machine”) used for earth moving, material handling, paving, construction, mining, agricultural and other industrial and commercial uses are complex in design and are typically assembled over a plurality of days. Furthermore, a plurality of optional attachments is often installed to customize the machine for a buyer. As such, it is difficult to identify and remove throughput bottlenecks and obstacles that occur during assembly of a customized machine and their contributing factors.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,520 issued Aug. 22, 2000 discloses an automated scheduling system which automatically generates and distributes schedules for the making of quilted products listed in input customer orders. The generation of schedules is carried out by a programmed central scheduling computer which considers stored data identifying each of machines and their capabilities, the materials available for production of the products and the product specifications and determines the machine setting and material requirements for each product on the customer order list. Schedules for each machine are generated so as to schedule each product with other products having similar machine setting or material requirements. While scheduling such batch processing may be beneficial to reduce manufacturing set-up time, a system that reduces the overall assembly time of a machine is desirable.